Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-05-01
CHAPTER VI.
THE STORM BREAKS.

son. Miss Jess, John said, presently, with
little laugh. II don't think you car
have happy mind.
She looked mp. "a happy mind?" shG
said. "Who can have q happy minds
Nobody who can feel. SuppOsing," sht
went on after pause surprising ont
nuts ones self and ones own little inter
ests and joys aud sorrOws quite away, how
is it possible to be happy, when one feel;
the breath of human misery beating or
ones face, and sees the great tide of sor'
row and suffering creeping up to ones
feet? One may he on q rock ones self and
out of the path Of it, till the spring floods
or the hurricane wave comes to sweep one
away, or one may he afiOat upon IT,
whichever it is, it is quite impossible, il
one has any heart, to be indifferent to it. "
"Then only the Indifferent are happy?'
eyes, the Indifferent and the selfish;
but, after all, it is the same thing; indif-
ference is the perfection of selflShness.
81 am afraid that there must be lots OF
selfishness in the world, for there is GER
tainly plenty of happiness, all evil things
Notwithstanding. | should have said
that happiness comes from goodness and
from sound Digestion
Jess shook her head rs she answered, 81
NAV be wrong, but | don't see how any
body who feels can he quite happy i'll q
world of sickness, suffering, slaughter and
death. l saw Kaflir woman die yester-
day, and her children crying over her.
She was poor creature and had rough
lot, but she loved her life, and her chill
dren loved her. Who cnn be happy and
thank God for his creation when he has
lust seen such q thing? But there, Cap.
tain Mel, my ideas are very crude, and
dare say wrong, and everybody has thought
them before; at any rate, | am not going
to inflict them on you. What is the use
of it, she went on with laugh; what
is the use of anything? The same old
thoughts passing through the same human
minds from year to year and century Ia
century, Just rs the same clouds float
across the same blue sky. The clouds are
born in the sky, and the thoughts are born
in the brain, and they both end in tears
and re-arise in binding, bewildering mist,
and this is the beginning and end OF
thoughts and clouds. They arise ont OF
the blue; they OvershadOw and break into
storms and tears, and then they are drawn
up with the blue again, and the whole
thing begins afrcsh."
go YOU don't think that one can be
happy in the wOrld?" he asked
Il did not say that never said that.
do think that happiness is possible. 1t
is possible if one can love somebody so
hard that one can quite forget ones sell
and everything else except that person,
and it is possible if one can sacrifice one $
self for Others There is no true happiness
outside of love and selt-sacritice, or rather
outside of love, for it includes the other.
That is gold. all the rest is gilt"
"IIow do you know that" he asked,
quickly You have never been in love"
"No," she answered, II have never
been in love like that, but all the happi.
ness have had in my lie has come TO me
from loving. | believe that love is the
secret of the world; it is like the philoso
pliers stone they used to look for, aud
almost % hard to find, but when one finds
it it turns everything to gold. Perhaps -
she went on with little laugh, when
the angels left the earth they left us love
behind, that by it and through it we may
climb mp Ia them again. 1t is one thing
that lifts us above the brutcs. Without
love man is brute, and nothing but q
brute; with love he draws near 10 God.
When every thing else falls away the love
will endure because it cannot die while
there is any life, il it is true love, for it is
immortal. Only it must be true-yOu see
it must he true"
lie had got through her reserve now:
the ice of her manner broke up beneath
the warmth of her words, and her usually
lmpassive face had caught the life and
light from the eyes above, and acquired a
certain beauty Of its own. lie looked al
it, and realized something of the untauyht
and ill-rCgulatcd intensity and depth OF
the nature of this curious girl. lie caught
her eyes and they moved him strangely,
though he was not an emotional man, and
was too old to experience spasmodic thrills
at the chance chances of n pretty woman.
He went towards her, looking ut her curl.
puSlv .--
cit would be worth living TO be loveC
like that" he said, more to himself tina,
TO her.
She did not answer but she let her eve
rest OH his. Indeed, she did more, for sh
put all her soul into them and gazed an,
gazed till John Mel felt as though he wer
being mesmerized. And as she did g
there rose up in her breast knowledg
that if she willed il she could gain thi
mans heart and hold it against al lii
world, for her nature was stronger tina,
his nature, aud her mind, unframed as i
was, encOmpassed his mind and could pas
over it and beat 1t down rs the wind beat
down n tossing sea. All this she learne,
in moment, i'll the twinkling of ar eve
she did not know how she knew it, but sb
did know it as surely as she knew that th
blue sky stretched overhead, and, what i
more, he-for the moment, at any rate
knew it too. II came on her rs a shOcl
and a revelation, like the tidings of a grea
Joy or grief, and for moment left he
heart empty Of all things else
She dropDed her eyes SuddenlJ.
II think, sue salu, quietly, "that w
have been talking a great deal of nonsense
and that want TO finish my sketch"
He got uR and left her, for he had to ge
home, saying as he did so that he though
there was a storm coming up, the air wa
| so quiet, and the wind had fallen as i
does before an African tempest, and pres
entity, on looking round, she saw hin
slowly climbing the PERCEPTIONS ascent t,
the table-land above.
1t was a glorious afternoon, such as on,
sometimes gets in the African spring. al
though it was so intensely still. Every
where were the proofs aud evidences O
life. The winter was over, and now from
the sadness and stcriIity of its withere,
age, sprang young and lovely summer
clad in sunshine, be-diamonded with dew
and fragrant with the breath of flowers
jess lay back and looked up into the in
finite depths above. How blue they were
and how measureleSs, She could not 40
the angry clouds that lay like yisibl
omens on the horizon. See there, mile
above her, was one tiny circling speck. I
was a vuIture; watching her from its air,
heights and descending little to see if sb
were dead or only sleeping.